More than 10 years of LM experience and > 6 years of Senior Leadership experience in Finance both in Russia and Central Asia and Belorussia (CEAB) units. Set up from scratch a Business Finance Team in CEAB with 4 associates promoted now to LM roles. Integration experience of “local jewel” OKF finance (KKV brand) team to Mars structure. More than 3 years of leading Chocolate FP&A team and then joint MW FP&A and Market Finance team. New experience with Demand Finance MW team in Russia with 13 direct reports. Great results in RAVE promotion to LM role in 2020. 2020 Gallup at 91%.

How I use empathy to motivate my team. I am calm, working to be more emotional. How I am emotionally charged. Flex my style. Link my business agenda to personality and experiences. Articulate clearly how I can help to each team member and contribute meaningfully.

Small things matter. Start with being perceived by the team as a leader with whom they want to share.

No longer afraid to openly empathize with people and listen to the team, if it is related to job security or any other crucial discussions with my team and wider community. Be brave in decisions and lead crucial conversations with the team. Experiment and practice flexible approaches in delivering messages via S&OP+, strategic platforms, etc.

You can develop skills in many roles from my point of view. While I continue to learn about talent development, 2 roles were especially valuable for me:
• my first manager experience (transitioning from individual contributor to manager)
• when I led larger organization (larger team with managers and Associates)

With my first managerial experience, I learned empathy and to be curious about people motivation and ambition by understanding individual motivation; giving them confidence to take risk by giving them more responsibility; providing them the right support and feedback; and engaging them to codify their learning and reflect on what they can improve. This experience helped me codify the type of manager I want to be, help my team to get the best of themselves and show the value of collaborating together. So to summarize how to create the right environment to develop and how I can contribute as manager.

Leading a larger organization help me to reflect on team capability, Hi Pro/ Hi Po management while assessing organization effectiveness. To drive performance in lager organization, you need to invest time identifying and developing your top talent while motivating the rest of the organization. I learn to differentiate development plans to boost talent, to build a succession plan, and to think more longer term of organization design and capability development. While I continue to be a manager (managing my direct report team) and become a leader by shaping the organization to deliver business ambition.

Managing talent, whatever the size of the team or organization, is from my point of view a priority as this is always to drive performance and team engagement. Some of the most challenging experience was when I have re-organized my team and reduce number of positions. You may think that it is not part of talent management, but I do believe that this is at that time where talent management is especially important. Having a fair assessment of my Associate’s potentials and understanding their motivations helped me to find the best options. I was clear who to keep and why but also knew what alternatives were possible for the people who did lose their roles. This helped me lead this transformation with confidence and in the right way.

You are learning every day how to develop people. The beauty is that it is always a new story as everyone is unique. But the story always starts the same way… be curious, be empathic, be honest and take risk on people, give them the chance that one day somebody gave to you.  Give them confidence that it is possible and inspire them by your example.

In my experience with Mars – as a Supply co-pilot and then as a Finance controller.

It is important to challenge Associates to move outside of their own comfort zone by creating stretch assignments and targets to make the experience meaningful & rewarding.

It all starts with giving meaningful feedback to create right focus around development areas. It’s important to help understand that development is not just a promotion, but it’s all about getting to learn new skills or gain experiences which will make them ready for the future. It’s also about preparing Associates to think unconventional way.

Embrace talent mindset & putting team’s development as my priority. It’s important to understand that experiences comes with its own set of learnings.

I gained Talent Development experience through several manager’s roles in Finance (AP Manager in Financial Operations, FP&A Manager and Demand Finance Director in Mars PN Russia).

The following key learnings I’ve taken from this experience:

• Be committed to talent development. Allocate enough time to every team member. Don’t let your functional objectives/tasks to keep you busy and deprioritize Associates’ development.

• One size does not fit all. All Associates are individuals with their strengths, ambitious, motivation, interests. Do not use one approach for all Associates’ development. Recognize their individuality and potential and help them to compile unique development plans targeting their development needs. Use stretch roles, projects and experiences for those who can and want to accelerate their development.

• Hold frequent development discussions. Be honest in the conversation with the Associate about his/her development. Be open in discussing strengths and areas for development, potential and future opportunities.

• Provide constructive, timely and actionable feedback. People need continuous feedback to grow. When providing feedback discuss the facts and give examples.

• Be the role model in personal development for your team members. Lead and encourage Associates’ personal development by example.

The most challenging part of Talent Development is to compile a really high quality and compelling development plan with stretching enough/uncomfortable objectives to ensure the best development journey for the Associate.

The best way to improve capability in Talent Development is practice, practice and practice. Having different manager’s roles and different teams has definitely helped me to improve in Talent Development: better understand the current strengths and weaknesses of the Associate, how to provide feedback and have development conversations in the effective way. And it is not the final destination. The journey of my personal development will continue!

I have been a line manager now for almost 20 years, from managing a team of one as my first LM role to leading teams of over 30 across multiple continents from the Americas through to Europe and Middle East & Africa down to Australasia.

As you go on your line manager journey you need to learn to flex your style. Not everyone is the same and in order to get the best out of people you need to understand what motivates and drives them, particularly across different cultures. Listening and showing empathy will be key to your success but also ensuring your teams have clear objectives and strong development plans. As you grow in your career and take on more senior direct reports focusing on these core skills becomes even more important skill for you and your team’s success.

Coming into a new role and inheriting a team, how you show up as a leader is really important but can also challenging. Failure to make this transition smooth will make setting up a high performing culture harder.

By listening to the new team from day 1, showing vulnerability, listening to them, respecting the past will help the team transition to the future quicker and support your vision and strategy. With each new team this becomes easier as you become more skilled in developing talent within your team.